


Entity

by EmeraldTulip



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: (or at least partners in crime/power buddies), Ambiguous/Open Ending, Future Fic, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Speculation, Will Byers Can't Catch a Break, Will Byers Has Powers, Will Byers Has Shadow Monster | Mind Flayer Powers, Will Byers and Eleven | Jane Hopper Are Best Friends, Will Byers-centric, el is a gift as usual, just something i thought of and could see potentially happening, like five years in the future-ish, sorta anyway you'll see
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-05-04 16:45:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14597313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmeraldTulip/pseuds/EmeraldTulip
Summary: The final puzzle piece clicks into place. All his fragmented dreams, all the possibilities he has seen, all the scenarios he has followed to their end—everything has led to this scene,thismoment. And, closing his eyes now, he can’t see past it.A mistake,the entity whispers, pleased.You made a mistake. You gave me a way out, and you gave me a way to you.





	Entity

**Author's Note:**

> hey guys! this is just a random idea i got about a standoff between will and the shadow monster in the future (or their future, at least, since it's still the eighties) and i ran with it. i wrote it under the assumption that will is going to develop mind flayer powers after season 2 and that he and el are going to kind of team up and get along. i hope you enjoy it!

His ears are ringing.

His ears are ringing, and though he shouldn’t be able to hear anything over the rushing of blood in his head, words still manage to get past. They bounce around in his brain, screeching like feedback, and he uselessly claps his hands over his ears to try to block it out.

The words he hears aren’t even words, but they mean something in an alien language—more importantly, they mean something to _him_. The message is simple: _You can’t fight me forever._

He thinks he blacks out for a second, because his memory shorts out and suddenly he’s on his knees and he can distantly hear someone screaming. He blinks his eyes open, everything hazy, and—

The door is open.

“No,” he mumbles, tongue heavy and throat raw. He closed that door. He knows he did, because _that was the whole plan, I saw it, I planned for everything_ , and _why is it open?_

He manages to turn his head to his left, and there’s his answer. El is crumpled on the ground, face bloody, one hand outstretched but limp, fingers splayed on the linoleum streaked in red. She’d been holding up the barrier, but it must have collapsed with her.

He hadn’t foreseen any of this—hadn’t seen it coming. And if the barrier is down, then the monster might get out. That hasn’t happened yet; he still can sense it in the room, even though it has visibly vanished. But maybe even worse, if the barrier is down, then their own friends could get _in_.

 _Stay back,_ he pleads silently, helplessly. _Stay away. It’s not safe here._ If he had enough energy, he might have been able to broadcast the message, to try to get it directly to them, or at least to their radios—but he’s drained, and the creature is suppressing their powers, and his words sound hollow in his mind. Though the room is cloaked in darkness, he knows they’re not normal shadows; they’re not his to control. He can’t even sense who might be in the building—feeling blind is unfamiliar, he hasn’t been so limited since he was twelve years old, almost six years ago. All he can hope is that he can hold off the creature, and that his mother and the Party won’t make it into the lab, and—

“Will!”

A flash of black hair and dirtied clothes, and Will’s heart drops. Mike skids to a stop in the doorway, eyes wide. His radio, only giving off static, clatters to the ground. “Will,” he says again, and Will struggles to his feet.

“Get out, Mike,” he rasps. For the first time, he truly wishes he could—would—use his powers on Mike. Wishes he could let black smoke fall from his lips and get Mike to leave, to run. “Please. You can’t fight it, _I_ have to, it’ll—”

“I’m not leaving you,” Mike says, and Will spots the steely glint in his eyes. “And don’t even try that hypnosis shit on me. I can’t leave you or El. I _won’t_.”

“Mike,” Will pleads. “Mike, _please_. Before it comes back. My powers—I can’t make you do anything, they’re gone. I’d never make you do anything anyway. But I can’t save you. Leave me, leave us, _you have to leave me_.”

And before Mike can reply, something shifts.

All at once the shadows bend and coalesce into a mass of darkness, peeling off of the wall to form a shape. It sounds like it’s laughing, but Will sure isn’t. The sound sends another wave of feedback through his ears and he yells, trying to will the pain away. In his peripheral vision, he sees Mike frozen just inside the room, eyes wide, but he can’t focus.

 _A mistake_ , the entity whispers, pleased. _You made a mistake. You gave me a way out, and you gave me a way to_ you _._

Will knows what it means when it said he gave it a way out. He and El had thought they could control it, could destroy it. They thought that if they let it out and killed it, it would all be over. But they weren’t strong enough, and they just gave it a way out. But something didn’t make sense.

“A way to me?” he mutters. “What does… what does that mean?”

It reaches out, its presence retreating from Will’s mind just slightly—just slightly, but enough to relieve some of that overwhelming pressure. He gasps for air, suddenly lightheaded, and almost misses what the shadow does next. Before he can even draw another breath, it reaches out and grabs El, her body hanging limp and small in its grasp. Though his power is drained, and she is unconscious, and their link is watered down in the entity’s presence, Will can feel the exact moment the darkness solidifies its hold on her.

“No!” he yells, throwing up his hands, something burning in his chest, behind his ribs, because another tendril of darkness is moving and he knows where it’s going.

But he’s slow; too slow. His wall of invisible force hits Mike, who goes flying back toward the open door, and then he just… stops. Stops midair. Will’s vision is still fuzzy around the edges, but he watches as the shadow latches onto his oldest friend and tosses him to the floor, freezing him in place. Will’s own blast whistles past, just enough to slam the door shut.

 _A way to you,_ it hisses, amused. _I have lived inside your mind. I know you. I have heard you—I hear you. A part of me still resides in there, you and I both know._

And yeah, Will does know. He knows because ever since he’d gotten his mind back, he’s made shadows move and lifted things without touching them and known what hasn’t happened yet and made people do things just by telling them. But he’d hoped that maybe he could control it, could use it for good. He’s tried everything, but it all just led him to this.

 _So, a way to you,_ it muses. _Something I’ve never quite been able to see in you is how_ far _you’re willing to go for them. Perhaps it’s because you yourself don’t know. I’d love to find out._

It shifts again, shadows pooling around Mike, cocooning him until he’s barely visible. Mike is awake, unlike El, and Will can see the way he strains against his invisible bonds. A tendril slithers across his face, and Mike’s eyes go wide, his flailing growing more and more pronounced by the second. Then it clamps over Mike’s mouth and nose, and Will sees his chest abruptly stop rising and falling.

His eyes sting and his insides burn. He holds back the tears, raises his hands in vain. “No. No, _please_.”

The entity just hums, content watching Mike suffer—watching Will suffer.

“Not him,” Will pleads, breath catching as he tries to keep it together. “Please, just… not Mike. _Not him_.” For a moment, nothing happens, and Will feels the desperation well up. This creature has been in his mind. It knows everything about him, every crease in his brain, every dark corner and hidden secret he has. It knows how he thinks, knows how he acts, knows how he feels.

_Please, not him._

To his surprise, a few of the shadow fall away, and Mike slumps in the monster’s grip, gasping for air. _Would you prefer her, then?_ it asks, and Will knew that the brief reprieve had been too good to be true.

The shadows begin to clump around El, and Will squeezes his eyes shut. He can’t save her, but she can handle herself—if she’s awake. _“El, wake up!”_ he shouts, latching on to their bond and sending her as much energy as he can. He waits one, two, three, then her eyes fly open and the faintest hints of fresh blood begin to appear under her nose, mixing with what has already dried. She flounders for a moment, disoriented, before registering the tendril coming at her face. Her eyes flare and Will can see a faint shimmer around her face—a shield. The shadow bounces off, and Will can practically hear the entity snarl in frustration.

 _You won’t win,_ it says, the shadows distributing evenly between Mike and El, squeezing them both around their middles until they’re both clawing at their bonds. Will tries in vain to break the shadows, to force them away like he normally can, but they won’t budge. The shadows belong to the monster, not Will.  _Now choose._

“What?” he asks, taken aback. “Choose?”

 _I’m going to kill all of you eventually,_ it rumbles. _Every last one of you. But for now, only one of them has to die—you only have to lose_ one _of your loved ones. Choose._

Will takes a reflexive step back, cringing away from the order even as it compels him, tugging at the faint hooks the creature planted in his mind all those years ago. Mike struggles, voice muffled, El tears at the smoke around her without causing any real damage. “I can’t!”

_I won’t!_

The thing—it’s a _parasite_ , curling around his brain, making everything hazy and dizzying—laughs. _But you will. Only one mortal will die tonight, I have foreseen that much. I have seen this day time and time again. I have seen my release. I have seen your struggle. The only thing I cannot see is your choice, and I am eager to see the result._

With the last three words, the final puzzle piece clicks into place. All his fragmented dreams, all the possibilities he has seen, all the scenarios he has followed to their end—everything has led to this scene, _this_ moment. And, closing his eyes now, he can’t see past it.

A thought rushes to his mind: _Maybe this is where it was always meant to come to. Maybe this is why all the futures, all the possibilities through time, led me here._

“Only one mortal has to die?” he hears himself ask, miles away. “Then I’ve made my choice.”

He reaches deep down inside of his mind, pulls away every block he’s carefully placed, lets the shadows flood his body. He draws from every reserve he has, reaches out and pulls from El, from the monster, from the dark mass that was left behind in his brain when he was thirteen, even from Mike. His body burns, his insides feel like lava, and he watches his hands shake and blister as he holds them out. He stands firm.

 _What are you doing?_ it asks, and for the first time, it sounds truly afraid. _You’ll burn yourself out!_

Will doesn’t respond— _can’t_ respond. He has to end this _now_. He squeezes his eyes shut and then thinks better of it—as much as their expressions will hurt him, he wants to look at them as he does it. He wants to look at their faces. He needs to look at El, his sister, his mind twin, his equal. He needs to look at Mike, his best friend, his strongest support, the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

His senses unfold as his power bubbles to the surface, and suddenly it’s like he can _see_ again. Lucas and Dustin are far enough away, in another wing of the lab. His mother is outside (and Will’s guilt multiplies, but he’s gone too far now). Max is right above them, though, and he manages to string together a quick message to her: _get out. fast._ She trusts him, he knows, and he senses her immediately break into a run, to the stairs, away.

And El. Mike. They’re still here. El is watching him, eyes wide and terrified, and for a moment her voice breaks into their link.

_“Will, you can’t. Don’t do this! Please, let me help. Don’t do it alone!”_

_“I have to,”_ he says, heart heavy, before twisting his neck and snapping their link. He feels it fizzle out in the air, that steady invisible silvery string sliced in two. It barely twinges in his own brain, numbed as he is by the overwhelming energy he is calling, but she screams and seizes, hands clenching and unclenching. It hurts his heart, but he won’t let her share the physical pain of this outcome.

He almost can’t look at Mike, but he does. His face is pale and horrified. Devastated. Intuitively, Will knows Mike’s figured out his plan, and if El’s pain hurt Will’s heart, Mike’s anguish breaks it.

“I’m sorry,” he says out loud, and suddenly he doesn’t want to go because there are so many things he hasn’t said, so many things he still needs to tell Mike. A lifetime of things. But there isn’t a lifetime to spare, to waste, so Will just gives himself a second—a single second—to stare at him, to look at him and hope that Mike understands. It’s too much for a single look, maybe, but Mike has always understood him better than anyone.

He can hope.

 _You will lose,_ the entity insists, panicked. _You will lose!_

 _You said,_ Will reminds it. _You said: only one mortal will die today. And maybe that’s true, but_ you _are not mortal._

Will’s thought about it, his last words and what they might be. Every idea he’s ever had goes out the window, now, as a white glow builds in his palms. He can’t remember any plan he’s had, as the shadows flood out and the light replaces it, and so. So. He tells them the only thing he can.

“Thank you,” he says. To Mike, to El, to his mother and his friends. Thank you for helping me. For loving me. For saving me, over and over. For giving me strength. For everything.

Thank you for being my friends.

His power condenses, burning as hot as a star, and then he lets it go.

**Author's Note:**

> well. yeah. i hope you enjoyed it! comments are, as always appreciated.  
> find me on tumblr [@he-lives-on-mirkwood](https://he-lives-on-mirkwood.tumblr.com)


End file.
